Only Time
by GoforthAndConquer
Summary: Time was always on Hatter's side. Now that's all he has. Unless he does something about it. Hatter x Alice. Based on Syfy's Alice.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It had taken seven and a half seconds after watching Alice disappear into the rippling mirror for Hatter to decide.

He stood there, decision ringing golden in his chest, and a wicked smirk lit up his features. "Wait for me, little oyster," he whispered, tipping his hat in promise, "I won't be long." And with that, he ran.

Time ticked by and he felt it like pulses beneath his skin, a constant reminder of seconds, minutes, hours. It took him nine hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty six seconds to arrive back at his tea shop, now rendered delightfully useless by the fall of the Queen. Dormouse was sleeping at the gate, and after rustling her awake, he began taking the shop apart. Hatter wasn't particularly sentimental, sorting through the mess that was his former trade. But when he entered the office, something strange caught in his chest, the memory of a raven haired girl in a drenched blue dress standing proud and wary rendering him motionless. But the clock kept ticking and he resumed pace. He moved to the left side of the room, opening up a wall that was actually a door and making his way upstairs to his flat. He entered his bedroom, and with just a pause to run his fingers over the soft material, tossed the velvet jacket onto the bed and returned quickly downstairs. He then rummaged through disordered files and papers and notes until they were strewn haphazard at his feet and he had the one he wanted firm in his grip. With a parting shot to Dormouse, he was out the door again.

After a journey of one hour five minutes, mere moments of greeting, then forty six minutes of haggling, bargaining, threats, insults, and a firm handshake, Hatter had sold his former tea shop to Gryphon, an overbearing but absolutely brilliant businessman that had his hand in every possible trade Wonderland had to offer. While Jack Heart's rule made it certain that the harvest of emotions was officially dead, the tea shop was prime retail location, and Gryphon had been drooling over that particular spot for years. Hatter had always been quick with a dash of mockery and a two fingered salute at previous offers, having absolutely no reason to part with his lucrative business. But everything was different.

He had reason now.

He returned to the shop one hour and eight minutes later, a tidy sum in his pocket, and the promise of three days to get everything in order before Gryphon kicked him out. He entered his office, and without any sort of warning, Hatter stopped. He moved as if drenched in syrup, unbearably sticky, and sat behind his former desk. He had sat behind this desk for many years now, so many that he couldn't remember the number. To his right was the secret door that led upward to his small flat, where he had hung his hat at the end of day every day for a very long time, removed from the whirlwind of muddy chaos that was Wonderland. Every night he poured himself a cup of tea, real tea, from his vast collection of flavors, and sat in his worn green armchair by the fire. And he spent all those evenings alone.

There were a variety of reasons for the lack of company. He was a con man, after all, balancing the precipice between loyal subject and resistance fighter, and that didn't lend himself to a plethora of companions. He had never desired the loud, clattering company of many to bugger up his life when tea and silence had always suited him just fine. But the truth was something else, as the truth usually is.

Hatter had lived for a very long time and met a great many people, but none had ever ignited any sort of spark inside his chest. Inspired any sort of emotion. No, for as long as Hatter could remember, the space inside his ribs had always rung hollow, an empty crevice that channeled the sluggish flow of his blood and echoed weary with his breath. Just an empty cavity, echoing silence and utterly useless.

However, he had always refused to sample from the tonics of emotion that he sold everyday. For an owner of a tea shop, that may have come across as odd that he never tested his wares, but nothing in the world would convince him otherwise. Those brews might drench those empty places with whatever vintage he chose, whether it was excitement or happiness or love, but they could never erase the knowledge that they were mere reproductions. Synthetic. Fake. A quick fix that would bloom into addiction until the slim chance that he could feel _anything_ real would disappear.

And that was the mad in itself, Hatter supposed. Living in Wonderland, a world topsy turvy backwards and brimming with colorful creatures and fantastical landscapes and all swirling together with a cheerfully dark insanity, but he was never satisfied. The only thing he had ever dreamed of, ever craved, was realness. Always searching for something real in a world composed of dreams.

He sat at his desk for twenty four minutes and seven seconds, immersed in memories. Memories, that for the most part, were tinted gray and faded at the seams. Until five days ago. Until Alice. When Hatter remembered the last five days, his mind swirled in Technicolor, bright and vivid and real. God, so real. Everything suddenly bursting with a realness that was so good it hurt. That organ inside his chest, once ticking and ticking with no end in sight, was overwhelmed to the point of bursting and for the first time, Hatter realized his heart was beating. He had a heart and it was beating. Because of Alice. For Alice.

He stood abruptly, making his way to the right hand side of the room and opened the secret door, twisting up the staircase and entering his flat. He wandered, his eyes taking in the worn furniture and colorful tapestries and assortment of knick knacks he'd acquired throughout his lifetime. The clocks on the wall struck loudly, warbling out of tune, and he remembered time was still marching forward. It had been twelve hours and thirty four minutes since Hatter had watched her, not the Alice of Legend but _his _Alice, step through the Looking Glass to the Other World, leaving him alone with his jacket that was now her jacket and she didn't know it. He wandered into his bedroom, and there it was, right where he had tossed it earlier, sprawled on his bed. He sat down and gathered the soft velvet cloth in his hands, brushing the lapel delicate. Just another jacket before, nothing special, not even his favorite. He hesitated a moment, then brought the material to his face and breathed deep. Yes! It was still there, that Alice scent, like lavender tea and spice and stubbornness and it was so uniquely her that something in his chest constricted tightly and Hatter could barely breathe.

He laid down, his bones suddenly aching weary, and he cradled her jacket against him, burying his face in that wonderful scent, trying to make her materialize by just wishing hard enough. But wishes rarely came true in Wonderland, and Hatter found himself clutching only her jacket as he fell into sleep and tumbled into dreams, dreams that were so much more real than he had ever known, the soft tick of the clock keeping time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Hatter awoke slowly and met the face of an angry clock staring him down from the bedside table. He sat up, the velvet jacket wrinkled and warm slipping from his arms and onto the bed. He picked up the clock, calculations erupting in his head, and realized that it had now been a whole day since she had left. Twenty seven hours and fifty six minutes since she had whispered what might have been a promise, words that had not stopped spinning through his mind in circles that made him slightly dizzy.

"And lots of other things."

Hatter was no fool. As a red blooded male, he knew what other things could mean. Had occasionally indulged in those other things from time to time. But those other things had always left him with a foul taste in his mouth, like ashes, because the only time anyone in Wonderland indulged in other things was when under the influence of Lust, manufactured and sold in stores everywhere. So Hatter's dalliances were kept few and far between, and those other things had never caused him much thought.

But Alice was a different story altogether. Other things to Alice, while surely encompassing the other things Hatter was aware of, were bound to mean much more than any Wonderlander could fathom. Hope gripped him by the throat and squeezed tight and he was losing air but strangely giddy about the prospect. Oh, how he wanted those other things more than anything! And if there was the slightest chance that Alice really meant what she said about those other things, well, not even the formerly scary fallen Queen of Hearts could stop him.

The bell rang, and Hatter's musings were successfully interrupted. With a grumble of protest, he made his way into his office, shutting the flat door firmly behind him. He had every intention of running the intruder out so he could go back to wondering about other things but when he looked up, Hatter remembered.

The Queen of Hearts couldn't stop him. Jack Heart could.

Jack Heart, now the King of Wonderland, was in the middle of his office, looking remarkably out of place among all the piles of clutter and sprays of colorful vegetation, dressed in a well cut suit and face polished like a gem and hair impeccably combed. Hatter was more than aware of his rumpled appearance, and meekly adjusted his hat before giving up completely.

"What can I do for you, your Majesty?" Hatter mumbled, three parts wary and one part tempted to use his powerful right fist to smash annoyingly perfect Jack Heart's annoyingly perfect face.

Jack Heart didn't say anything for a moment, just watched him, eyes clear as winter glass. He cleared his throat once, and began. "I hear you sold the tea shop."

Hatter shrugged, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I did. Gryphon tell you?"

What may have been a smile tweaked at Jack's mouth. "Gryphon has told everybody he can get his claws into. I'm surprised there wasn't a parade."

Hatter replied with a mocking half smile, but otherwise was not amused. "That's Gryphon for you. Look, your Highness-"

Jack held up a hand, interrupting, "I think we're past all these formalities, Hatter. Jack is fine."

His insides twitched, sour, but Hatter just rolled his eyes and let the King have his way. "Fine. Jack. Look, I know you're not looking to have a soddin' tea party, so why don't you tell me why you've appeared on my former doorstep?"

The question hung in the air, dissolving any pretense of a casual visit, and Hatter could have sighed in relief. He didn't have time to waste fluttering around with paltry society games that Jack Heart had mastered by the time he was teething. No, time was slowly slipping through his fingers and he was damn sure he wasn't going to waste those precious minutes on Alice's former boyfriend, even if he was the ruddy King.

"You're chasing after her, aren't you?" Jack asked, though the chill in his tone, that regal calmness, meant that he already knew the answer.

His right fingers twitched, clenching into a fist, but Hatter just crossed his arms, smirking indolent. "Yeah. What's it to you anyway? You had the girl. You lied to the girl. You lost the girl. Tough luck, mate."

To his credit, Jack remained utterly composed, though if that was from his unfaltering control or that fact that his body was just a well formed husk, empty of any emotion, Hatter couldn't tell. Though his money was on the latter. "If you think," Jack commented, "that it's all that easy to travel through the Looking Glass, you are sorely mistaken. And you have no guarantee that Alice will be receptive to your rather clumsy advances."

Something hot flared in Hatter's throat, making him clench his teeth, making his body quiver from the need to pound Jack Heart's face into the ground. "I'm not like you, King," he bit out, contempt poorly disguised. "You may be willing to let her go without a word, but I'm not. You have wasted," he glanced down at the clock perched on his desk, "thirteen and a half minutes of valuable time that I could have been spending making ready to leave this bollocksed up world. I've stood beside her, endured tortured for her, rescued her, fought for her, nearly died for her, and I'll be bloody well damned if I'm gonna let her go!"

His words echoed loudly, marking the air like a brand, and the silence that followed was hushed with anticipation. It was then Jack Heart did something that Hatter did not expect at all.

"Good." he said, punctuating his words with a nod. "Then I'll help you."


	3. Chapter 3

Jack Heart was going to help him. Jack Heart, the bloody King of bloody Wonderland and Alice's ex-boyfriend, was going to help him. Well, crazier things had happened.

"Why?" Hatter asked, shoulders slumped, as if he were a marionette and his strings had been cut. Jack stepped forward, his arms crossed behind his back, looking every bit the king that he was supposed to even in the midst of a tossed about tea shop.

"Do you want the altruistic reason first? Or perhaps the more selfish ones?" Jack replied, sitting himself on the white couch as if he owned the place.

Hatter debated those options, walking forward and slumping in his big armchair, careful not to knock off the giant headphones perched on the back. "Selfish, first," he decided, sending a sharp glance to Jack that was tangibly acidic, "I'm more inclined to believe them."

Jack nodded, unruffled. "I do not blame you." He stretched out a bit, wiping a bit of imaginary dust from his crimson suit jacket, and sighed deeply. "Here's the problem. I have just been crowned King of a nation falling apart at the seams. Wonderland, at the moment, is in the throes of victory. However, we will shortly realize that while the Queen may have fallen, her shadow remains."

"What do you mean?" Hatter asked, not incredibly curious but his mind was sharp enough to realize the importance of what was being said.

"Think about it," Jack began, "We have lived for one hundred years utterly dependent on the emotions drained from oysters, addicted to liquid drops of whatever feeling you could possibly desire. Now, the people will have to contend with this dependance. The good emotions won't disappear, but all the bad ones, confusion and anger and fear, they will have free reign inside us again and we have no idea how to deal with them."

Hatter contemplated this, but he already knew how right Jack was. As the former owner of a tea shop, he had seen more than his share of people utterly consumed by their addictions. He had seen people instantly hooked to the tonics, wasting away all their savings until they had nothing but the craving for more. There were so many people, too many, like Rat Catcher, dressed in rags and eating scraps and suffering from withdrawal, shivering and begging and crying in the darkened crevices of the city. It made him sick just to think about. He had tried to help them, with all his secret work with the Resistance, but the only way to help anyone was to have the means to do so. His means had been the tea shop, and the cycle was particularly vicious.

Jack looked at him straight on, gaze clear and piercing. "I need someone who has the understanding and the means to help these wretched addicts recover, someone who has seen the effects of Emotional addiction and knows how to handle it. I can't think of anyone better than you, Hatter."

The strange compliment threw him completely off his guard, and Hatter wasn't sure how to take it. The possibility of giving back to the people who had become addicted in his shop in the first place was something that he had always hoped for. But a con man is a con man, and he had been too preoccupied playing both sides to really make strides. Now, Jack was offering him an opportunity on a golden platter and Hatter was instantly wary.

"How is this going to get me through the Looking Glass?" Hatter demanded, raising a sardonic brow.

Jack chuckled lightly, not offended at all. "There's more to that particular proposal obviously. I will continue with it later. But there's the real reason, both selfish and selfless, why I need you with Alice in the Other World."

Hatter rolled his eyes, not even feigning politeness. "Well then, do tell."

"You do realize, of course, that the Queen did have supporters?" Jack questioned, and Hatter motioned him to continue. "I know my mother, and while she backed down on that field, surrounded by a very unhappy crowd, she has not given up. She will have agents in the Other World already, waiting to do her bidding. And what could be better at striking back at Wonderland than destroying the girl who saved it?"

The dark revelation struck him something fierce, and Hatter sat up abruptly, hand gripping his chest. Pain, unlike any wound he had ever received, was radiating beneath his skin at the thought of Alice, alone and vulnerable in the Other World, completely unknowing that there was still danger. His throat tightened and he closed his eyes, willing away the terrible images, Alice caught unawares, the sharp shriek of a gun, crimson blossoming on the front of her periwinkle dress. Hatter clutched at his head, fingers digging in his hair, rocking back and forth and back and forth as the images kept coming and coming and -

"No!" He screamed, throwing himself to his feet, his right fist curled and he slammed it on his desk, shattering it completely. "I won't let it happen! I won't!"

He breathed heavily, rocking, glass crunching beneath his feet, his bones still aching with the thought of Alice gone, more than gone, because she could never come back. Something strangely wet blurred his vision, and he held a quivering hand to his face and was surprised to find his skin slick with moisture. He pulled his hand back, rubbing his thumb across his fingers, the liquid sparkling and smelling of salt. He looked up, and Jack was staring at him, still as composed as ever, as if he hadn't witnessed such an outburst.

"I can't be there, Hatter." Jack said, voice calm. "You can. I know you would do anything to protect her. You already have. In order to keep Wonderland safe, and more importantly, to keep Alice safe, I need you to go through the Looking Glass."


End file.
